


Through Line

by lildogie



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Groping of dubious consent, Illustrated, M/M, Power Imbalance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 08:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2144250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lildogie/pseuds/lildogie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The paint-splattered studio of the terrifying Professor Makara—once known as the Grand Highblood—is the last place art minor Karkat would expect to be struck by the pale thunderbolt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through Line

**Author's Note:**

> Please check the tags. There are a couple romance tropes floating in this one that could displease.
> 
> This is a non-Sgrub universe, wherein the trolls and their ancestors were hatched at scattered times in Alternian history. Feferi was born and took the throne a couple millennia before this story is set, so Alternian society has been substantially reformed.

  
You cannot wait for this class to be over. Art is your minor, and you only chose it because you like to storyboard your film projects. And maybe because that led to an interest in troll shoujo manga... which you later began drawing, yourself. Just a little. You expected art to mean paintings of romantic, mythological subjects, but instead, everyone's into all this modern hoofbeastshit, where nothing looks like anything real, and you're supposed to find meaning in splotches, and blank canvases, and heaps of construction materials.

  
Like, for example, the back wall of Professor Makara's studio. You're sure it's paint. You're ninety... eighty... seventy-five percent sure it's paint. But you're certain, despite all the angst-of-the-single-off-center-dot crap you've been forced to absorb, that it's supposed to look like a trans-spectrum massacre went on in there, and it's succeeding. Sure, A+ job representing something horrifying, but you're just not into modern art; nor are you enough of a shithead "history buff" to think references to old-timey highblood slaughter are cute.

  
Especially not when your professor, who's not going by The Grand Highblood this millennium, might well have been involved in that kind of thing. Sure, you don't know. Sure, that title probably didn't mean the same thing by the time he inherited it. But there aren't a lot of records from before the Great Reform, and there are a lot of rumors around this guy. And, yes, books, covers, et cetera, but the guy _looks_ , and sounds, like he eviscerates people for fun. It's only the lack of missing student reports that reassures you he doesn't. If he ever asked you to stay after class, you'd quit school.

  
In his favor, though, his is the most traditional class you've taken. The other professors this sweep have all tried to fill your pan with color theory and appreciation for shit you don't like, but Makara has been all about the technical basics. You've set up your easel all over campus, attempted to learn perspective, drawn fruit bowls, buildings, skylines, squinted along pencils, hatched in shadows, gotten charcoal all over your clothes. You've learned a lot, even if you had to simultaneously learn not to soil yourself when he talked to you.

  
Today is the last class of the semester. You file in among a group of first-sweep students and find the easels set up in a semi-circle around a raised, circular platform. That's _right_ , you remember, with a surge of excitement, today is supposed to be figure drawing, which is your favorite. Trees, fields, buildings, flowers—they don't act. They don't emote. Trolls are where the romance is.

  
You get your drawing pad set up, your materials lined along the tray, studiously avoiding eye contact with the professor, who hulks in the corner like a storm front, so it's a while before you notice there's someone sitting behind him.

  
All you see at first is a spot of purple, peeking out behind Makara's leg. It pings you because it wasn't there before, and when you lean out from behind your easel, you realize it's a cloth-covered knee, attached to a bare foot that touches the floor behind Makara's polished black loafer. It's strangely novel: a bare foot. You can't remember the last time you saw anyone's feet. Why would you? You swipe your finger along your pad; the curve of the arch.

  
[](http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/227/b/d/through_line___1_by_lildogie-d7ubyta.jpg)Some brave soul asks a question, and the professor moves away. You stand up straighter. The owner of the foot lounges in a hard plastic chair, one arm over the back, one ankle crossed over his knee, eyes fixed on the nubtop in one long-fingered hand. Tall, narrow, gently curving horns. He's wearing some mish-mash of who-knows-what-culture-that's-supposed-to-be garb: a long, flowing skirt of plum-colored crepe, a lavender sash around his waist, a black vest that leaves a stretch of skinny abdomen showing, an aubergine shawl around his narrow shoulders. He has a mass of shiny, black curls, some falling around his face, some gathered into a loose braid woven with silver and lilac ribbons which sits over his right shoulder. Amethysts catch the light at his earlobes. Gee, you wonder what his blood color is.

  
You want to cover his stomach. The impulse is so strong you take a step forward before catching yourself and ducking behind your easel. What the fuck is that costume? Isn't he embarrassed? Isn't he _cold?_

  
You glance around, but none of the other students seem to have noticed him. Is it just you who thinks that outfit is a bit much? A bit too pleasure-planet dancer? ...In this crowd, it _could_ just be you who reads that kind of book. It could.

  
The last students drift in, and the doors close. Professor Makara sets his easel at the center of the semi-circle, in front of the platform, and starts talking about gesture drawings, how you start with quick lines to capture the basics of the pose: head, spine. He crooks a finger at the model.

  
The model unfolds from his chair in a rustle of fabric, the tinkle of little coins sewn into the folds of his skirt. He steps up onto the platform and raises his arms, cocks one hip.

  
Makara draws a circle and a swoop on his pad. "See?" he asks the class. "Quick. Just the main movement of the pose." There's a lot of frantic nodding. You're not the only one who finds him intimidating. "All right, you motherfuckers try. Fast." He waves at the model. "Ten, five seconds each."

  
You fumble for a stick of charcoal, but he's already started chanting, "Head... spine... switch." You panic and throw down a head that looks like a peanut and a line that goes nowhere near the model's posture.

  
"Head... spine... switch."

  
[](http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/227/5/8/through_line___2_by_lildogie-d7uc25y.jpg)The model shifts his pose fluidly at each cue, twisting his shoulders, bending at the waist, crouching, rising. He moves the shawl with each, lifting it behind him, baring smooth, slender arms and shoulders. You want to draw that line, too, but the chant keeps you to your truncated stick figures.

  
"Now, get focused," Professor Makara growls. He beckons, and the students all crowd in. "Gimme thirty," he says to the model, who bends slightly, and lifts his skirt to reveal one calf. You choke, but no one else reacts. Makara puts down an oval, the curve of the spine, a slash each for shoulders and hips. He steps over in front of the model. "See here?" He touches the model's right shoulder with his index finger. His fist is half the width of the model's torso. There's a contrast worth drawing. He pulls his finger across the model's shoulders. "Through line, just like that, get the motion. That's it. Same thing at the hips." You see the model stiffen when Makara touches him there. "Switch."

  
The model turns and puts his hands on his hips, leans forward, his face tilted away from the professor. You're supposed to be gauging the angles of his shoulders and hips, but instead you're watching the way his lips compress when Makara's finger drags along the waistband of his skirt again.

  
Makara calls for another series of quick poses. It's frustrating, because each one the model strikes is beautiful, has all these contours you want to map, but you're supposed to stick to the construction lines, which say so little. Your hand fights you, and the lines don't look right, but there isn't enough time to assess. The professor prowls behind the easels chanting, "Head... spine... shoulders... hips... switch."

  
You're so preoccupied trying not to draw the curve of the model's back that the huge hand enveloping yours takes you by surprise. The shriek you manage not to utter vibrates in your thorax. You look up at the professor. He scowls.

  
"Hey, freeze." The model stops in his current pose. "You're doin' it wrong, motherfucker," Makara says to you. He taps a claw on your most recent stick figure, which looks like an ancient propeller-driven airborne personnel transport. "That look like how his spine is to you?"

  
"Uhm..." Under his arm you can see a rustblood across the semi-circle smiling a thank-god-it's-not-me smile. Asshole. "No?"

  
"Spine goes down the middle," he says. "Where are you even lookin'?"

  
His hand is huge. He could snap your arm like a twig. You swallow. "I was, uh... trying to get the..." You gesture with your other hand. "The bend." 

  
He snorts and releases your hand. You're vaguely surprised to find it in the same shape it was before. "We covered foreshortening before. Use your peepstalks, pupa. You seein' that whole line you drew?"

  
You stare at the model, who's thankfully facing just a little to the left of you. You touch your charcoal to the paper and look up at the professor for confirmation. He lifts his eyebrows. You stare again at the model and make a quick slash. "More like that," you say, and add in the hip line, then, with more hesitation, the shoulders.

  
Makara grunts and moves away, and you do an admirable job of not melting into the floor in relief. Next, he introduces the main shapes you need to block in, how to reduce the torso, pelvis, and legs, to shapes. You mean to listen, but you zone out; you're watching the model, who waits through the lecture with patience you can only marvel at, almost still. Even standing at rest, there are all these lines to him that you want to commit to paper: the shawl tucked under his arms, the ribbon curling under his ear, the turn of his wrist... which is too fine for someone his height; does he even eat?

  
You start when he moves, seating himself on the platform. "Construction lines _first_ ," Makara rumbles. "Don't be messin' with the details 'till you got head, spine, shoulders, hips, organ cage." He smacks the back of one hand into the other palm on each item. You shake yourself and ready your charcoal.

  
[](http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/227/d/1/through_line___3_by_lildogie-d7v5134.jpg)The model sits with one leg bent on the platform, the other pulled up in front of him, one arm resting on that knee, the other behind him, propping him up. He tosses his head, throwing his braid over his shoulder, and looks up, directly at you. His smile is this massive show of teeth which ought to be fearsome, but instead looks so obscenely unguarded that you break your charcoal stick in half against the pad and take a step back. You're going after the pieces rolling across the floor when Makara claps his hands and says, "Five minutes. Go."

  
He doesn't stop smiling. How does anyone maintain a smile that long? It makes your chest tight and your face hot. He's probably just supposed to do it—it's part of the modeling gig, for some weird reason—he's not really smiling at _you_. But telling yourself so doesn't ease the tension in your shoulders, and you snap your charcoal twice more, spewing dust across your drawing.

  
"The fuck is his body?"

  
You jump, upsetting your easel, and fumble to save it from falling. Professor Makara looms behind you. "Did I say paint a portrait? He's got nostrils and no motherfuckin' legs."

  
You have the body blocked in—although now you look at it, the angle of the spine looks wrong—and the front leg. But below the shoulder he's a glorified stick figure. You were going to fill in more light and shadow... you just got held up on the face. You kept correcting the curve of his cheek where his smile dented it. The exact width of each eye and the depth of the shadows above them.

  
"Can't fathom if it's your eyes or your ears that's broke," Makara says. "Try again." He stalks past you, steps up onto the platform, and lifts the model by his shoulders like a doll. "Get distracted real easy, huh?" He whips the shawl off and tosses it aside, pulls the model against him so his back is facing you.

  
There's an uncomfortable hush. That's not uncommon in this class, but this time you feel it like physical pressure. Makara has one large paw over the model's narrow hip. The younger troll's posture looks relaxed enough, but one hand twitches by his side, almost forming a fist before loosening. You swallow. Makara tosses the model's braid out of the way and draws one finger from his nape to the bare small of his back. The model flinches subtly, back curving away from his claw. Your hackles rise. "Shit ain't neuroscience to visualize. Draw the _spine._ "

  
You stare, immobile, until he says, "Move!"

  
You snap to attention and slash your charcoal down the page. One swoop. There. You look back to the model and it looks closer than what you've managed before. A little off, though. You try again, and it looks better. You look back to the professor. _Now get your paws off him,_ you think.

  
"Got it?" he asks. You nod. "Good." He takes the model's shoulder and flips him so he's facing you, his head against that hulking shoulder. "You can't get a visual on his spine from here, but you ain't so empty in the pan you can't figure that shit out, are you?" He wraps his hand around the model's throat, enveloping it, and lifts his chin, tugging his hips back with his other hand, forcing his back into a bow. "Right through the center. Draw it."

  
Your line jitters at the end, dust showering down the page.

  
"You're a details troll, huh?" Makara says. "Get all caught up in the miniscule. Let's wrest some of that shit out the equation." Still holding the model by the throat, he hooks a claw in the neck of the black vest and yanks. With a series of pops, the garment falls open, and Makara pulls it down, drops it off the platform.

  
The model's arms begin to rise. Then his hands fist and he drops them.

  
"Hey, stop!" The words are out before you register opening your mouth. Professor and model both stare at you. The younger troll opens his pearl-gray eyes wide, meeting yours, and gives a minute shake of his head. You flush down to your throat.

  
Makara's purple eyes narrow, and the corner of his mouth rises, lifting the painted fangs that frame his lips. "Get your claws on the charcoal, motherfucker." He touches the hollow of the model's throat with one finger, then draws a lingering path down, between the soft definition of his pectorals, over the dip of his stomach. His claw dips under the waistband of his skirt. A lavender flush rises over the model's high cheekbones and darkens as that finger trails back up, just as slowly. He gives the professor a narrow look, then looks away, mouth tight.

  
"What you waitin' on?" Makara demands.

  
You try to concentrate on the macro elements. You try to generalize. Head. Spine. But the soft, vulnerable curve of his exposed belly, the way his graceful throat disappears behind Makara's fist, make you near frantic. The tips of his ears are dark purple, and they twitch, though the rest of him remains heroically still.

  
You swipe at the paper. Careless, sweeping strokes, anything to bring this moment to a close. Swoop after swoop with your whole arm.

  
"Got it?" Makara asks.

  
"Yes."

  
"Now the other main construction lines, like I told you."

  
Trying to look at the young troll's body, not his face, makes sweat prickle along your hairline. You squint to blur out Makara's hand. Just the main lines of the pose. You bite your lip.

  
"Done?"

  
"Yes," you rasp, throat dry.

  
The young troll sort of melts away from the professor when he's released, relief so palpable in his frame you almost collapse with the sympathetic release of tension. He glances at you as Makara moves away, barking new orders. You duck behind your easel, guilt and shame like a clawed fist around your bloodpusher. For his next pose, he turns his back to you.

  
  
  
The rest of the class is a tense blur. Logically, you can't have passed the next hour and a half holding your breath, but it feels that way when you finally slink out of the studio, portfolio clutched to your chest.

  
You dart up the hall away from the main exit and into the ablutionblock to avoid your classmates. Your hands shake as you splash water on your face. You feel like you've been in a fight. And lost.

  
A dripping reflection looks balefully out from the mirror. "The fuck was that?" you demand. It glares back. You sigh and fumble for a towel. At least Makara doesn't teach any of your remaining requirements. You've got Maryam next semester. You've had her before. She's honestly a bit of a space invader, too, but you don't exactly mind. And she doesn't scare you incontinent.

  
The door creaks. "Fuck," you hiss, and jump into a stall, close the door as quickly and quietly as you can.

  
The rustle of crepe and the tinkle of coins announces him, and you curse under your breath, your heart thumping hard. Shit, why did he have to choose _this_ one?

  
You sit gingerly on the lid of the load gaper, not wanting to call attention to yourself. All you want is not to see anyone until you can force your humiliation to the back of your mind and act like your dignity remains intact. You especially don't want to meet him. It didn't even occur to you that you might. It's not like he sprang to life in the studio, so of course he had to leave by some route, it's just... you don't know, exactly. Weird.

  
A loud sigh from the sinks interrupts your internal monologue and you jump, unintentionally peek out through the crack above the lock. He's leaning over the sink towards the mirror, his face too close to it for you to see his reflection. Mostly you see the back of his curly head and his hips, shifting very slightly from side to side, but you can't make out what he's doing.

  
You watch for several minutes, brow furrowed, leaning this way and that in a vain attempt to get a better look, before you realize that you are sitting on a fucking load gaper in an out-of-the-way ablutionblock, spying on a scantily dressed stranger, and have to try not to crawl out of your skin in revulsion. The only thing you can think of is to flush the load gaper and announce your presence before you get any creepier, so you do.

  
"Mother fuck!" The stalls shake as something that has to be a troll crashes into them. You yelp, and so does the other guy, and when you manage to wrest the door open, he's leaning against the sinks, face white with a dark gray streak across his mouth, clutching at his chest.

  
You squint at him, then at the stalls, as if they'll provide some information. "Did you... fall off the sink?"

  
"Was tryin' to get at the mirror," he pants. "Put the fiercest kinda start on me, brother."

  
You laugh incredulously. "That's impressive. That's... not something just anyone could manage."

  
He blinks his large, gray eyes. Given your relative positions on the hemospectrum, he must be about your age not to have any hint of color in his irises; yours have been fully red for a sweep. Then he smiles, revealing perfect, white fangs, and you feel strangely warm in your organ cage. "How 'bout that shit," he says. "You _can_ put a smile on."

  
"What?"

  
"Aw, there it goes," he sighs. He pokes his cheeks with two index fingers. "Go on, ain't that hard a feat." Your face twists in confusion and he shakes his head, chuckling. "Guess I scared the motherfucker up out."

  
"Are you okay?" you ask.

  
"Oh, sure." He waves a hand. "I'm a tumbler. Gettin' schoolfed in clowning so you can bounce me offa just about any thing. I don't even really have bones." You want to poke the rib that protrudes under the edge of his vest and challenge him. "I thought I was on my lonesome up in here."

  
"You should pay more attention to your surroundings," you say.

  
"Yeah, I hear that a lot from the old man." He turns back to the mirror. "Awww, shit. This ain't no kinda visage to be shinin' at the Messiahs." There's a little glass pot beside one sink with two colors of goop in it, white and deep gray. He frowns at his reflection, tilting his head to one side, then the other. "Didn't bring any cleaner... How'm I gonna salvage this mess?"

  
You ought to grab your portfolio and bolt, but instead you wash your hands, watching him out of the corner of your eye as he draws a wide area of gray around his lips, enveloping the smudge, then dark shapes around his eyes.

  
"So you're in the Church, huh?"

  
"Uh-huh," he says. "You got faith, brother?"

  
" _No,_ " you say, recoiling. "I'm not interested in that pious hoofbeastshit, so—"

  
"'S cool, 's cool!" he says, holding up both hands. "Just posin' an interrogatory." He puts a hand over his chest. "Gotta go where your heart tells in you to be. Ain't tryin' to drag a troll anyplace." There's a dark smudge on his collarbone when he moves his hand. He takes a step back from the mirror, regarding himself critically. "Guess this shit'll hafta do 'till a motherfucker can get at some supplies. This getup ain't no kinda convenient." He slips the jar into a pocket in his skirt which disappears in the folds as soon as he removes his hand. He turns toward the door.

  
"Hey, wait."

  
"What's up, brother?"

  
"Um." You don't really have anything to say; you just don't want him to go. In three sweeps, you've never even seen him on campus. He's not in your major, so you'll probably never see him again. You don't know him. He's a highblood. He's a churchgoer. The idea of him disappearing from your life shouldn't trouble you, but it does. You wipe your palms on your jeans. "Uh. Uhh." You thrust out your right hand. "I'm Karkat."

  
God, his smile. Even with the stupid cultist paint on his face, it's like the moon coming out from behind a cloud. No one over a sweep old smiles like that, like they've got nothing to hide and it's okay to let just anyone know when you're happy. You glance around as if someone might catch you seeing this sight that isn't meant for the likes of you. You want to bundle him away so the wrong people won't see that look. He takes your hand and gives it an enthusiastic pump. "Gamzee Makara," he says.

  
You falter, your hand still in his grasp. "Makara... Like the professor? Are you...?"

  
He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, he's my ancestor."

  
Certainly, with the face paint, there's a resemblance. This guy's horns look like they could grow and twist the way Professor Makara's have. But you can't believe the Grand Highblood was ever a slender, breakable slip of a troll like this.

  
You pull your hand back slowly. "How did you even...? I mean, the odds against actually _meeting_ your ancestor are astronomical."

  
He shrugs. "Serendipity."

  
"How's that?"

  
"Speakin' of," he says. "Oughta get my ass back to the hive before he bawls me out."

  
"You live with him?" He nods. He turns to go again. "Wait." He stops. "Don't you have anything else to wear?"

  
"Naw, he made me come out like this." He looks down at himself. "Joke's on his ass, 'cause I got a liking for the skirt."

  
"Hang on," you say. You rummage through your portfolio and find the cardigan you have stuffed in one corner, rumpled under a couple pads of newsprint. It's gray like the sign you wear on your shirts, but it doesn't have any markings on it. You hold it out to him. "It's cold outside. You'll freeze in that."

  
He looks at you for a long moment, not moving at all, before you notice the tips of his ears turning purple.

  
"G-go on," you say, shoving the garment at him.

  
"I can't be absconding with your wardrobe."

  
"Yes, you can. It's the least I can do—" And then you flush, hot and painful.

  
He looks down, swallows, then takes it from you. You avert your eyes while he pulls it on, your skin crawling with guilt and awkwardness. This would be the perfect time to be a rainbow drinker, turn into a blood mist and just dissolve right out of this situation. When you look back, he's smoothing his fine-boned hands down the button placket. Your gut tightens and you stand up straighter. He looks up at you through lowered lashes. "Thanks," he murmurs. "That's real kind of you."

  
"It's fine," you mutter. When did the air get so heavy? When did the silence get so fucking loud? "Hey."

  
"Yeah?"

  
"Um..." You take a breath. "Are you... look, are you... okay? I mean, with... with him." You manage to meet his eyes. His brows purse.

  
"With who, the old man?" You nod. "Oh, 'cause of..." He nods toward the door. "'Cause of that shit in class?" You nod again, resisting the urge to apologize. He waves a hand. "Nahhh. That's just how we do. He's my kismesis. Antagonizin' just to get a rise from me."

  
"He's your kismesis. _Him._ "

  
"Yup. Pretty badass, right?"

  
You scowl. "No. No, not really. You're supposed to _fight back_ in a kismesissitude."

  
He stuffs his hands in his skirt pockets and rocks back on his heels. "Don't mean to cast no aspersions on your ocular acuity, there, brother, but have you wrapped your pan around a motherfucker's size?"

  
You shudder, remembering the huge hand that swallowed Gamzee's throat. How frail he looked in the ancient troll's grasp. "Yeah. I have. I'm not saying you have to strife with him—" The thought gives you a flutter of panic in your protein chute, and you take a step closer. "But if all you're doing is taking what he has to deal out, that's _not_ blackrom. That's not _anything._ That's _shit._ " You stop, breathing hard.

  
He grins, his eyes creasing. "What're you, some kinda quadrant expert?"

  
If you had a troll caegar for every time you've been asked that, you could buy the deluxe, autographed box set of Laello Daegar's romances in gilt-edged, hardcover, first editions. This is the first time the question hasn't been confrontational. He actually seems to want an answer.

  
"Yes," you say, drawing yourself up. "I am the greatest romance expert of my generation. There is no nuance of quadrant-based intrigue I couldn't explain and analyze to within an inch of its miserable life." You sneer, like you're joking.

  
You're totally not joking.

  
"First time I met one a those," he says. He gives you that look again, through his eyelashes, which brings you to attention. "Maybe you could schoolfeed a brother on the subject."

  
You're frozen. For all your vaunted expertise, you are at a loss for what seems like a full minute. Oh god, oh god, oh god, do _something_ , you idiot, you need a response, you hamfisted fuck, you need to spew words from your face gash, _do it_ , goddammit!

  
"You buttoned it wrong," you lie. It breaks all your rules about getting into strange trolls' personal space, but you take hold of the collar of your cardigan and destroy the evidence of your lie. You rebutton it, slowly, to give yourself time to think.

  
He is very still. You hear him swallow. "Careless," he murmurs. "I guess."

  
You look up, and he kisses you. You don't have time to close your eyes, and you register the softness of his lips and the feeling of greasepaint smearing over yours only after he's leaned back again. You stare at him, still holding his middle button.

  
He stares back.

  
You keep staring.

  
He grimaces, pulling away, though not far enough to dislodge your hands. "I'm sorry!" he says. "I'm sorry, brother. I was... Thought I felt a vibe flowin'... I didn't mean to—"

  
You slip your hand into the soft curls at the back of his head and pull him down, press your lips to his. He's stiff with surprise for a second, but then you feel him relax, his mouth soften. For all that his skin is cool beneath the paint, your whole body flushes with heat, and something rises in you like strong wine on an empty stomach, heady and dizzying. Your fingers tighten in the cardigan.

  
His eyes are closed when you lean back, long, black lashes curling over the gray paint. His lids rise slowly. He watches you, silent.

  
"Have dinner with me," you say.

  
"What... now?"

  
"Right now. Come with me. I know a place east of campus that serves everything edible in this hemisphere."

  
He blinks. "Why?"

  
"Because I can't look at you without wanting to feed you."

  
His eyes widen, but he doesn't look away. "Okay."

  
Your chest swells. You stroke your thumb through his hair before removing your hand. You release the sweater and step back. "Good." You remember Professor Makara and wince. "I mean... are you going to be okay... with him?"

  
He runs a hand pensively over his shoulder, plucks at the ramscoat. "He won't do nothin' but blow steam. Said I was meant to sling some rebellion his way, didn't you, Karkat?"

  
Your nostrils flare. You like the way he says your name. "Yeah."

  
"So let's roll out some insubordination." He holds out a hand. "You're gonna learn me how, ain't that right?"

  
You clasp his hand, the tension in your chest ceding to energy, all of you alive and eager for action.

  
"It's gonna be the schoolfeed of a lifetime," you say. "I hope you're ready."


End file.
